During 1971 and 1972, a blue-ribbon commission composed of eleven citizens selected by Governor Rockefeller and the leaders of the legislature conducted an extensive inquiry into the administration of justice in the courts of New York. According to its chairman,
D. Clinton Dominick, the commission found a court system that was
in grievous need of reform:

Administrative responsibility is fragmented. Criminal and civil case backlogs are too large. The need to resort to plea bargaining is too prevalent.
Judges and other court personnel are allocated unevenly. Coordination with
court related agencies is insufficient. Long-range planning and the collection and analysis of data are deficient. The cost of the courts and court-related agencies is dispersed inequitably among the state and its municipalities, and there is no uniform budget for the entire court system. Court
facilities are inadequate. The procedure for disciplining judges is cumbersome and lacks flexibility and public understanding. The bail system discriminates against the poor. The grand jury and preliminary hearing
procedures have unnecessarily duplicate steps. 1

Other items could be added to the list, but even as it stands this
enumeration of defects comprises a substantial agenda for court reform. Yet these defects have not appeared for the first time only in recent years; on the contrary, they have been plaguing the New York
courts for decades. Most of them have been targets of previous court
reform efforts, and in order to gauge prospects for successfully ad-

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